In the mid-1980s, Jean-Bertrand Aristide was a parish priest working in an impoverished and embattled district of Port-au-Prince. He became the spokesman of a growing popular movement against the series of military regimes that ruled Haiti after the collapse in 1986 of the Duvalier dictatorship. In 1990 he won the country’s first democratic presidential election, with 67 per cent of the vote. He was overthrown by a military coup in September 1991 and returned to power in 1994, after the US intervened to restore democratic government. In 1996 he was succeeded by his ally René Préval. Aristide won another landslide election victory in 2000, but the resistance of Haiti’s small ruling elite eventually culminated in a second coup against him, on the night of 28 February 2004. Since then, he has been living in exile in South Africa.

According to the best available estimates, around five thousand of Aristide’s supporters have died at the hands of the regime that replaced the constitutional government. Although the situation remains tense and UN troops still occupy the country, the worst of the violence came to an end in February 2006, when after an extraordinary electoral campaign, René Préval was himself re-elected in a landslide victory. Calls for Aristide’s immediate and unconditional return continue to polarise Haitian politics. Many commentators, including several prominent members of the current government, believe that if Aristide was free to stand for re-election he would win easily.

It is encouraging and delightful to read this article.With all due respect to President Aristide ,my question is this ;Knowing that the rebels could not took over the capital why instead of talking to the American Ambassador during the night that preceded his departure he did not leave tabarrre and go to the national palace where he could have mobilized his counter attacks?When one assumes certain functions one has the obligation to fight to the end.Other President had fought the rebels who were armed by the forces of evil in the world.

I am glad also he clarified this point : he has no intention to reenter politics ;Indeed a man of Aristide caliber could do better for the country outside the contradictions of politics.I used the word "contradictions" for I could not understand that people who are admirers of Jefferson , Georges Washington ,Abraham Lincoln can be so hateful of other people who are seeking the same inalienable rights given to them by their creator.

It is this dichotomy of the American government 's foreign policy that is so troubling for some people in the World.On one hand they are preaching the benefits of democracy:one man one vote.Yet on the other when the people elect their representatives who want to transform the society where the haves maintain the haves not in abject poverty ,certain representatives of the American people choose to maintain the exploitation of the masses by a group of wicked individiduals.

JBA: No. The Haitian people are not armed. There are criminals and vagabonds, drug dealers, gangs who have weapons, but the people have no weapons. You’re kidding yourself if you think that the people can wage an armed struggle. It’s pointless to wage a struggle on your enemies’ terrain, or to play by their rules. You will lose.